This comprehensive text explains the principles and practice
of Web services and relates all concepts to practical examples and
emerging standards. Its discussions include:

Ontologies

Semantic web technologies

Peer-to-peer service discovery

Service selection

Web structure and link analysis

Distributed transactions

Process modelling

Consistency management.

The application of these technologies is clearly
explained within the context of planning, negotiation,
contracts, compliance, privacy, and network policies.
The presentation of the intellectual underpinnings of Web
services draws from several key disciplines such as databases,
distributed computing, artificial intelligence, and multi-agent
systems for techniques and formalisms. Ideas from these
disciplines are united in the context of Web services and
service-based applications.

Featuring an accompanying website and teacher’s manual
that includes a complete set of transparencies for lectures, copies
of open-source software for exercises and working implementations,
and resources to conduct course projects, this book makes an
excellent graduate textbook. It will also prove an invaluable
reference and training tool for practitioners.

Munindar P. Singh is a Professor of computer Science at
North Carolina State University From 1989 through 1995, he was with
the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (better
known as MCC). Melinda's research interests include multiagent
systems and Web services. He focuses on applications in e-commerce
and personal technologies. Munindar's 1994 book multiagent Systems,
was published by Springer-Verlag. He coedited Readings in Agents,
which was published by Morgan Kaufman in 1988. He has coedited
several other books and authored several technical articles.
Munindar's research has been recognized with awards and sponsorship
from the National Science Foundation, DARPA, IBM, Cisco Systems,
and Ericsson.

Munindar was the editor-in-chief of IEEE Internet Computing from
1990 to 2002 and continues to serve on its editorial board. He is a
member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Autonomous Agents
and Multiagent Systems and the Journal of Web Semantics. He serves
on the steering committee for the IEEE Transactions on Mobile
Computing.

Munindar received a B.Tech. in computer science and engineering
from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, in 1986. He
obtained a PhD in computer science from the University of Texas at
Austin in 1993.

Michael N. Huhns is the NCR Professor of Computer Science
and Engineering at the University of South Carolina, where he also
directs the Center for information Technology. Previously he was a
Senior Member of the Research Division at the Microelectronics and
Computer Technology Corporation. Prior to joining MCC in 1985, he
was an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
at the University of South Carolina, where he also directed the
Center for Machine Intelligence.

Mike is a member of Sigma Xi, Tau, Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, ACM,
IEEE, and AAAI. He is the author of over 180 technical papers in
machine intelligence and an editor of the books Distributed
Artificial Intelligence, Volumes I and II, and, with Munindar,
Readings in Agents. His research interest are in the areas of
multiagent systems, enterprise modeling and integration, and
software engineering. From 1997 to 2003, he wrote a column Agents
on the Web for IEEE Internet Computing.

Mike was an associate editor for IEEE Expert and the ACM
Transactions on Information Systems. he is an associate editor for
the Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. He is on
the Editorial Boards of the International Journal on Intelligent
and Cooperative Information Systems, the Journal of Intelligent
Manufacturing, and IEEE Internet Computing. He was an advisor for
the First International Conference on Multiagent Systems, 1995, and
has been on the advisory boards for the International Workshops on
Distributed Artificial Intelligence. He is a member of the board
for the International Foundation for Multiagent Systems and the
International Foundation on Cooperative Information Systems.

Mike received the BSEE degree in 1969 from the University of
Michigan Ann Arbor, and the MS and PhD degrees in electrical
engineering in 1971 and 1975, respectively, from the University of
Southern California, Los Angeles.

This well written title relates all concepts to practical examples
and to emerging standards. It discusses ontologies, Semantic
Web technologies, peer-to-peer service discovery, service
selection, Web structure and link analysis, distributed
transactions, process modelling, and consistency management.
It also explains the use of these technologies for planning,
negotiation, contracts, compliance, privacy, and network
policies.

Video streams of the author's lectures (of his service-oriented computing course to accompany the book)are now available online - free access for all. See http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/mpsingh/local/SOC/s05/s05-sched.html

Video streams of the author's lectures (of his service-oriented computing course to accompany the book)are now available online - free access for all. See http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/mpsingh/local/SOC/s05/s05-sched.html

Digital version available through Wiley Online Library

Instructors

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